Egypt has addressed challenges and developed tools and basis likely to counter money laundering and financing of terrorism, as well as effectively co-operating with the member states of the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENAFATF).
Head of the Egyptian Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Combating Unit (EMLCU), Counselor Ahmed Saeed Khalil, made the statement yesterday to the 32nd MENAFATF meeting on combating money laundering and financing of terrorism and proliferation in the region, MENA reported.
Egypt presided over the meeting, that was convened virtually as part of the anti-Covid precautionary measures, as the chair of MENAFATF for 2020-2021.
The pandemic has hit the entire world as hard as ever, and affected regional groups, in some way or another, including MENAFATF, in terms of countering money laundering and financing of terrorism in the member states, Khalil said.
Despite the extraordinary conditions, MENAFATF continued its workm making several achievements that included continuing evaluations of the Arab Republic of Egypt, and preparing follow-up reports. It has also adopted exceptional measures for handling the evaluations process during the pandemic.
Egypt has been keen on applying the action plan set by MENAFATF and addressed the challenges facing the group in the mutual evaluations, besides improving effectiveness of performance, and updating the work basis adopted in task teams, forums and various committees, he added.
Khalil described as fruitful the meetings held with the MENAFATF chief and secretariat, in the presence of its executive secretary, in order to clarify various points on the action plan, and challenges facing the regional groups under the pandemic, as well as the flexibility needed to handle workflow, with regard to mutual evaluationss and field visits to countries.
MENAFATF is a FATF-style regional body for countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Through the organization, members work to adopt and implement the FATF recommendations as well as anti-terrorism treaties and UN Security Council resolutions.
They also seek to identify region-specific issues concerning money laundering and terrorist financing, as well as to share experiences. Through MENAFATF, members attempt to take anti-terrorism-financing measures in a way that does not run contrary to those countries’ cultural values, constitutional frameworks, and legal systems.
